Indian judge sentences Delhi rapists to death

AFP, NEW DELHI

A woman demands the death sentence during a protest outside the Saket Court Complex in New Delhi yesterday. An Indian judge sentenced to death four men convicted of the fatal gang rape of a student on a New Delhi bus, fulfilling the dying wish of the 23-year-old victim.

Photo: AFP

An Indian judge yesterday sentenced to death four men convicted of the fatal gang rape of a student on a New Delhi bus, fulfilling the dying wish of the 23-year-old victim.

The packed courtroom burst into applause as Judge Yogesh Khanna announced his sentence. The defendants — lowly paid migrants to New Delhi mostly in their 20s — broke down in tears and one of them, gym assistant Vinay Sharma, howled loudly before he was led away by police.

The judge told the fast-track court in the south of the capital that the case, which sparked widespread anger against the treatment of women, fell into the “rarest of rare category” that justified capital punishment.

“In these times when crimes against women are on the rise, courts cannot turn a blind eye to this gruesome act,” he said.

The mother of the victim told reporters that she was delighted the judge had ordered their deaths by hanging.

“We are happy that in the end we got justice. My daughter wanted them to be given the death sentence,” she told reporters.

There had been a huge clamor for the four — Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh — to be executed for their attack on the physiotherapy student and her male companion on Dec. 16.

The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, died of grievous internal injuries on Dec. 29 after being lured on to the private bus following a cinema trip with the companion.

After beating up the friend, the gang brutally assaulted her behind tinted windows for 45 minutes before flinging the bloodied and barely conscious couple onto a road leading to New Delhi’s international airport.

Her injuries were so severe that she died nearly a fortnight later in a Singapore hospital. She briefly regained consciousness, telling family and friends of her desire to see her attackers burn to death.

“It was an inhuman act which has shamed all humanity. The message is that if you commit such a crime, you will get such punishment,” Indian Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told a news conference.

The men will now be taken to the capital’s high-security Tihar Jail where they will be placed on death row.

India had an unofficial eight-year moratorium on capital punishment until November last year, when the only surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks was executed. Weeks later, a Kashmiri was hanged over his role in an attack on parliament a decade ago.

Lawyers for the men have already said they will appeal the convictions in the Delhi High Court, which will spell years of argument and delays in India’s notoriously slow legal system.

“This is injustice! This is not fair!” defense lawyer A.P. Singh shouted after the sentence was read.

The gang’s relatives had also pleaded for their lives to be spared ahead of the sentencing, and Thakur’s mother, Malti Devi, broke down in front of reporters at the family’s home in the state of Bihar.

“Why is such a young life being snuffed out in this manner,” she told reporters, weeping on the floor of the family home.

In appeal, the defense is likely to advocate lesser sentences for some of the gang and argue it was a “spur of the moment” crime and not premeditated.

Police in riot gear maintained a heavy presence outside the court yesterday, with the road leading up to the complex barricaded off.

There was widespread anger after a juvenile who was convicted last month for his role in the attack was sentenced to just three years in a correctional facility — the maximum allowed by law, given his age.